Last Chance Knit & Stitch Page 18

  He’d gone out of his way to make her feel powerfully feminine today. And the feeling was exciting and intoxicating. She didn’t see him as an old man, even if he was thirteen years older. Even if he was more than forty and she was twenty-eight.

  “I should tan your hide, girl, for behaving like that. And I sure as hell need to have a man-to-man with Simon.”

  Like Coach had ever spanked her in his life. She wasn’t really worried. But she knew for certain that Coach was going to give Simon a piece of his mind. And Simon, being an ex-Rebel and all, would listen to him. Rebels, ex- or otherwise, always listened to Coach. Honestly, being Coach’s daughter was murder on her social life.

  Molly folded her arms across her chest. She was tired of this crap. And besides, Coach was the one sitting there getting drunk. All she’d done was go skinny-dipping and kiss a guy in the middle of the freezing Edisto River. It wasn’t like she’d gone off to the Peach Blossom Motor Court with Simon, as much as she might have liked to. Nothing had happened today. And Simon had made it clear that nothing was ever going to happen. So it was done, over, finished. And Coach was going to get his way. Again.

  And she’d go along with the rules because she was a good girl and always had been.

  And then it occurred to her that she wasn’t the only person who had misbehaved in this room.

  “Daddy,” she said, knowing that calling him that would get his attention, “why are you sitting here in the dark drinking liquor?”

  Muscles bunched along his jaw but he said nothing. Coach was not going to give her any kind of explanation. She might as well give up.

  “Have you had dinner?” she asked, taking pity on him.

  “No.” There was a peeved note in his denial. Molly refused to feel guilty. But she decided to show him mercy.

  “I’ll see what we have in the fridge.” She turned away from him and hit the lights. Coach flinched in the sudden brightness.

  “So, how did the second day of football camp go?” she asked as she opened the fridge. The cupboard was kind of bare. But there was a carton of eggs. Molly had very few skills in the kitchen, but she could scramble eggs.

  “I stayed home today. Dash Randall covered for me,” Coach said.

  She turned, egg carton in hand. “You missed football camp?”

  “I wasn’t feeling too good. I had a headache.”

  “Daddy, did you drink last night, too?” Molly had been very late getting home. She’d been putting in some serious hours on the Shelby to make up for lost time.

  Coach made no reply to her question.

  “You did get drunk last night, didn’t you?”

  Coach looked up at her with bleary eyes and echoed Molly’s own words of a few moments before. “It’s none of your damn business.”

  She put the eggs down on the counter with a little more force than was entirely necessary.

  “Yes, it is my business.” She put her fists on her hips.

  “How you figure that?”

  She was momentarily stumped by this question. Because, really, if Daddy and Momma wanted to ruin their lives, it was their business. Just like it was her business if she snuck off to the Peach Blossom Motor Court with Simon for an afternoon of sin.

  She and Momma and Daddy were all fully grown adults.

  But it was still her business if Coach went on a bender. Because she loved Coach. And Momma, too. Even when they misbehaved.

  “It’s my business because we’re family,” she said at last.

  “Some family,” Coach muttered. He snatched the glass off the table and downed a big swallow of bourbon.

  She held her tongue and concentrated on scrambling up some eggs and cheese for the two of them. She snagged a Dr Pepper from the refrigerator and joined Coach at the kitchen table. “Here, you need to eat something.”

  He looked down at her offering, which was admittedly a little browner than it should have been. He gave an indifferent sniff.

  She dived into her own eggs. They tasted okay, even if they didn’t look all that appealing.

  “Why don’t you know how to cook?” he asked. His words were just a little slurred.

  “I’m not interested in cooking.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just not interested.”

  “You should be interested.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  “You know this whole thing is your fault.”

  Molly continued to chew her rubbery eggs. For once, she decided not to rise to his bait or mouth off. She was going to be as calm and rational as she could be. She was going to be mindful of what came out of her mouth.

  She looked up from her food. Coach was staring down at his bourbon. “You know, Daddy, you’re kind of right. Momma wants me to be different. She wants me to learn how to cook and to help her mind the store. And I guess I’ve let her down in that respect. But it isn’t all my fault that she’s gone. Her note made it clear that she was tired of waiting on you, too. She wanted to go on a vacation with you, but you went fishing.”

  “I’ve been a good and true husband to her. I love her. How could she walk out?”

  “Do you love her, or do you just like clean laundry?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You gave her a washer and dryer on your wedding anniversary. That’s not a very romantic gift, you know?”

  “But—”

  She held up her hand. “Daddy, listen to me. Since she’s been gone I’ve come to realize just how much Momma does around the house. She washes the clothes, gets food on the table, and she’s also the sole proprietor of a successful business. She’s an amazing woman. And none of us really appreciates her.” Molly let go of a big breath. “So if she took off to tour the world or whatever, it’s because none of us gave her a reason to stay.”

  Her father pinched the space between his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. And then he burst into sobs. And for the first time in her life, Molly comforted Coach instead of the other way around.

  CHAPTER

  16

  It was Tuesday evening. The Purly Girls had come and gone, and Ricki was feeling happier than she had in a long, long time. Molly had trusted her enough to let her handle the meeting alone.

  Almost. Angel had been there to help the girls with the actual knitting part of the meeting. But Ricki had been in charge otherwise and that made her feel a million times better about herself. Being a clerk at the Knit & Stitch was way better than waiting on tables. And there were fringe benefits—she was learning how to knit. And it was fun.

  She tidied the shop then snapped a lead onto Muffin’s collar, locked up, and headed for her apartment behind Dot’s Spot.

  She wasn’t prepared when Muffin suddenly crouched down and started growling and shivering simultaneously. Ricki looked up, and there was Les Hayes strolling down the sidewalk on the other side of Palmetto Avenue. Muffin was watching him like he was the devil incarnate.

  Ricki watched him like he was a really handsome, unattached, sexy-as-sin male human being.

  She and her dog were clearly not on the same page about Leslie Hayes.

  She scooped the dog up into her arms, gave a quick look both ways down Palmetto, and jaywalked.

  “Hey, Les, wait up.”

  The big man turned, hesitated, and then gave her a mouthwatering smile. By the sudden spark in his baby blues, he was happy to see her. “Oh, hey, Ricki. I see that Molly’s taken you back full-time. I’m glad about that.”

  “Yeah, I guess she decided to work on the Shelby while she has the space at the Coca-Cola building.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t end up unemployed. I was only jobless for a couple of days, and it really sucked.”

  Muffin yipped and then growled. Les gazed down at the dog. “She’s kind of high-strung, isn’t she? I had a dog once. His name was Rex. But he was a big ol’ coon dog. He didn’t shiver like that.”

  “You know, it’s strange. She’s usually so sweet.”
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  “Not around me, she isn’t.”

  Ricki thought about that for a moment. Les was right. Muffin was always growling at Les. It was like a sign. A very bad sign. “Maybe you remind her of whoever it was that abandoned her.”

  “She was abandoned?”

  “Yeah, I found her sleeping in the planter by my apartment. Who would throw away such a sweet dog?”

  Les shrugged. “So, uh, are you headed for Dot’s?”

  Ricki hadn’t actually been headed that way. The Wild Horses usually didn’t play at The Spot on Tuesdays, and she only went down there when they played. It was really sad the way she still carried a torch for Clay. She needed to get over that. He was married and had a baby now.

  “Is that where you’re going?” she asked.

  He nodded. “I kind of don’t know what to do with myself since Molly and I had our falling-out. Why don’t you come with me? I could buy you a beer.”

  “How about a glass of wine?”

  “Whatever you like.”

  She ought to keep her distance. Les belonged to Molly. And besides, Muffin didn’t like him for some reason.

  But Ricki liked him a lot. A whole lot, in fact.

  “Okay. I just have to take Muffin home,” she said. A little wave of guilt passed through her. Muffin would be lonely. And Muffin seemed to think that Les was someone Ricki should stay away from.

  But guys as handsome as Les didn’t ask her out for a beer every day of the week. In fact, it had been years since anyone, handsome or otherwise, had actually offered to buy her a drink.

  And she was getting too old to turn down offers like that.

  Jane brought baby Peter to the book club meeting on Wednesday, and he immediately stole the show. For once, Molly wasn’t bombarded with knitting questions during the refreshment phase of the meeting, which featured a couple of Jenny Carpenter’s pies this week. Instead, the book club members passed the baby around like frat boys passing a bottle. And really the women got just as happy as frat boys.

  The baby had some kind of magic impact on all of them. They made cooing sounds. They smiled and giggled.

  And it all made Molly incredibly nervous.

  That baby was tiny. And she was sure someone was going to drop him on his head or something. She wanted them to put him down in a safe place.

  And then Cathy, who was the designated holder of the moment, turned to Molly and said, “Here, you take him. You practically delivered him.”

  “Uh, well …” Words failed her. She wanted to point out that she’d watched while Simon had taken charge and that watching Simon deliver the baby had been sort of life-changing. At least her feelings about Simon had altered in that moment. Her feelings about babies, not so much.

  But she didn’t say any of this because, the next thing she knew, Cathy was putting the baby in her arms.

  The moment that soft, warm weight hit her, something kind of hitched inside of her. It was scary as hell, but kind of wonderful, too. Even so, she stood there superglued to the linoleum tile, afraid to move. Peter looked up at her, slightly cross-eyed, and the corners of his little, toothless mouth curled up.

  “Look, he’s smiling,” Cathy said.

  “It’s just gas, for goodness’ sake,” Lola May said.

  Jane peered down at the child. “He is smiling,” she affirmed. “He likes you, Molly.”

  Molly wanted to admit that she kind of liked the baby, but she had an image to maintain.

  And then Pete stretched his little baby body, gave a sigh, closed his eyes, and went blissfully to sleep.

  “Wow, Molly, you might be a baby whisperer in addition to having skills with yarn,” Jane said. “I’ve never seen him just lay back and go to sleep like that. He’s kind of a wakeful little critter.”

  Molly wanted to smile, but she was still sort of afraid to move.

  “Do you mind holding him for a while?” Jane asked. “I mean the meeting is about to start, and if I take him back, he’ll wake up.”

  “I’m a firm believer in letting sleeping babies lie,” Nita said. “So why don’t we get started, since little Pete is being such an angel for Molly?”

  Molly carefully took a seat and adjusted the baby’s weight. It was kind of hard to focus on Nita with the child in her arms. She just wanted to look down at his sleeping face. He was a most miraculous baby. Probably because he was the only baby Molly had ever held in her life.

  Nita kicked things off. “I thought I’d get tonight’s meeting started by asking y’all how you felt at the end of Little Women when Jo sets aside her literary career to marry Professor Bhaer and help her husband run a school?”

  “If you want the truth,” Cathy said, “I think she was an idiot to turn up her nose at Laurie. Why would any woman in her right mind do that?”

  “Do you think she would have maintained her literary career if she married Laurie?” Savannah asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Cathy said. “I just felt let down at the end when she marries that big, German oaf. She could have had everything, including a rich husband.”

  “Who she didn’t love,” Hettie said. “I think the worst thing in the world is to be married to someone you don’t love. I really admired Jo for telling Laurie no. That took real courage for a woman in the eighteen hundreds. And I applaud Jo’s parents for not forcing her into a marriage with Laurie. Many parents would have, you know, given how rich he was.”

  This speech from Hettie Marshall Ellis made everyone a little uncomfortable because Hettie’s first husband had been a rich man her parents had picked out for her.

  “That’s true,” Rocky said. “But would you have given up being the CEO of Country Pride Chicken in order to marry Bill?”

  “He didn’t ask me to.”

  “But what if he had?” Rocky persisted.

  Hettie clasped her hands in front of her. “If the only way to have Bill was to give up the chicken plant, I think I would have done it. But that’s beside the point. A man who truly loves would never ask that.”

  “Ha!” said Lola May. “Maybe not your Bill, but I gotta tell you, all three of my exes were resentful of my work outside the home. They weren’t resentful of the money I made, but they thought I should work and cook and clean for them. Which is why they are all exes, and I’m never going to get married again.”

  “I think you just made my point, Lola May,” Hettie said in a soft, lady-like voice.

  Lola May sniffed.

  “You’ve been mighty quiet,” Nita said, turning her sharp brown eyes on Molly. “I would have expected you to have something to say about this book. In particular.”

  Molly had been paying more attention to Pete than the conversation, so she was caught a little off guard. Still, Little Women was the kind of book that kind of stuck in your head. The last few days her mind kept turning back to it.

  Molly envied the love portrayed among the March sisters. She had always secretly wanted sisters. Maybe if she’d had a girlie sister like Amy or Meg, she could have been more like Jo. And no one would have expected so much of her.

  “Well,” she finally said, “I sure don’t blame Jo for telling Laurie to take a hike.”

  This elicited a number of chuckles around the room.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” said Rocky. “It’s just that everyone’s been wondering whether you were influenced by the book when you turned down Les’s proposal.”

  Molly gazed from face to face. Her so-called friends were all smirking, except for Savannah, who seemed very serious right at the moment. “No, I wasn’t influenced by the book. I read the book after Les proposed.”

  “He’s very disappointed,” Cathy said.

  Molly turned her gaze on Savannah. “I don’t want to lay blame, but this is partially your fault. If your aunt hadn’t meddled and told everyone I was going to marry someone I’d known forever, Les wouldn’t have gotten the wild hair up his butt to actually propose. Honestly, his proposal
came from way out of left field.”

  “Really?” Jenny asked, while Savannah didn’t look surprised at all.

  “Really. I haven’t even kissed Les. And believe me, the idea of kissing him is mildly repulsive. So I don’t know what he was smoking when he sprang his whole marriage thing on me. And now he’s all ticked off because I won’t marry him. And he’s been a total jerk about the Shelby. He won’t help me with the engine. To be honest, he owes me a lot. I mean, he took my job at Bill’s. If you must know, I’m deeply disappointed in Les. He’s been sort of mean to me the last few weeks.” In marked contrast with Simon, who had been nothing but kind.

  “Now, Mol, don’t get down on men. They have their good points, too,” Jane said, smiling down at little Pete, who was still sleeping away in Molly’s arms.

  “I have nothing against men. Hanging with the guys and watching football is great. I enjoy the company of guys. But not when they start acting like little girls whose feelings have been hurt. Honestly, Les is behaving like a total drama queen.

  “And as for the protagonist in this book, I thought Jo was at her best when she vowed never to marry at all. The story would have been perfect if Jo stayed a spinster—maybe running the school on her own, without a man. But I guess that would probably have gotten the book banned in the eighteen hundreds.”

  “Don’t you want to get married?” Jenny asked.

  Molly hung on to little Pete and held her ground. “No. I’m completely happy on my own. I love my independence. Why should I give that up for a man?”

  The women around the table gave her a bunch of pitying looks, even Lola May who was constantly swearing off men and then falling in love again.

  Savannah broke the silence. “Molly, honey, you don’t need a man, any more than Jo March did. But there will come a day when a man is going to knock you on your butt, just like Professor Bhaer knocked Jo for a loop. And you’ll care about him. And when you fall, you’ll fall hard, because that’s the way you are. You’ll live and die for this love, Molly. You might even be willing to give up your Shelby for him.”